Vaughn Palmer: Dix stumbles, Sterk shines in radio debate

Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun columnist04.26.2013

Green party leader Jane Sterk (left) was positive and quick in her responses in Friday’s radio debate, but the NDP’s Adrian Dix was reluctant to account for his sudden change of principles on the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

VICTORIA - As the radio debate unfolded Friday, it became increasingly apparent that New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix was reluctant to account for his sudden change of principles on the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

On April 11, he’d said what he’d said many times before, that as “a matter of principle” he would not take a stand on the proposed twinning of the existing oil pipeline through B.C. until the firm has made a formal application.

Then on Monday of this week, at a campaign event in Kamloops, he slammed the door on the proposal, the absence of a formal application notwithstanding.

This, according to the followup press release from the New Democrats, represented “a clear, principled stand on oil pipelines in B.C.”

Flip-flopping is one thing. But to claim both times that one was standing on principle? Are Dix’s principles that elastic, that he can manipulate them to produce two different positions on the same issue in the space of less than two weeks?

For his part, the NDP leader clearly didn’t want to talk about it Friday.

Not during the 90-minute debate on radio station CKNW when he was pressed on that score by Premier Christy Clark.

Not afterward, when reporters pursued the same line of questioning through much of the scrum without getting much in the way of fresh insights into why he executed such a dramatic change of positions in the space of less than two weeks.

“As all of you know, I take these issues seriously” said Dix at one point, referring to his concerns about the proposed increase in shipments of oil through the port of Vancouver. “I’ve done a lot of work on them over time — obviously we’ve given considerable thought over time to them.”

Then there was this: “The time I made the decision was when I made the announcement.” Right there on the public platform in Kamloops? The guy reverses his principles on the spot?

Dix’s new-found opposition to Kinder Morgan has gained him accolades from many quarters, tanker traffic being as toxic as bitumen to many British Columbians.

So why doesn’t he celebrate his reasons for making it?

One plausible explanation for Dix’s reluctance to explain himself further has to do with the role that crass politics played in the timing of his decision.

The Greens were reaching out to potential NDP supporters by styling themselves as the only party unequivocally opposed to the Kinder Morgan pipeline as well as the Enbridge Northern Gateway project and to any increase in oil tanker traffic anywhere on the B.C. coast.

I gather some NDP candidates and organizers were worried that the message seemed to be connecting here and there.

Dix, with his meticulous attention to the political arena, doubtless picked up on the threat from the Greens and decided to try to diminish it with a convenient change of, well, he said it, principles.

In addition to the Green role in prompting Dix to come out against Kinder Morgan, I thought the party’s leader Jane Sterk did herself the most good in Friday’s radio debate.

She was mostly positive and quick in her responses. For instance when a caller to the phone-in portion of the show complained about the low levels of social assistance for disabled persons like herself, Sterk was the first of the leaders to jump in and express sympathy for the woman.

When Clark, responding to a shrewd question from host Bill Good, half admitted that the government had scrapped a program for providing independent review of pharmaceuticals to appease the drug companies, it was Sterk who pointed out the significance of the premier’s comment.

Refreshing to hear a leader who didn’t sound as if she’d spent too many hours trapped inside a message box with pollsters and handlers.

Nor did Sterk oversell her chances in the election, telling reporters that she hopes the Greens would be able to establish a “watchdog” presence of maybe four seats in the legislature.

John Cummins, the Conservative leader, spent much of his time attacking the Liberals, his target audience being disaffected supporters of the governing party who can’t bring themselves to vote NDP.

He did himself some good too, despite the embarrassing backdrop provided by his having to fire two candidates this week over ill-advised comments reported by Jonathan Fowlie of The Vancouver Sun.

Clark came into the debate as the most experienced communicator of the four, having thrived as a radio host at the very station where the debate was staged.

But she does herself no favours by insisting she’s already balanced the budget when the province is only four weeks into the fiscal year in which she’s merely proposed to balance the budget. Or by insisting she can make the province debt-free when she’s in the midst of boosting the debt by 50 per cent. Or by her deliberate misreadings of the reports of the credit rating agencies.

The latest Angus Reid poll, released on the eve of the debate, had the B.C. Liberals trailing the New Democrats by 14 points, narrowing the gap from 17 points at the outset of the campaign.

But if the race continues to tighten, I expect it would have more to do with gathering doubts about Adrian Dix than any emerging confidence in Clark as a leader and premier.

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Vaughn Palmer: Dix stumbles, Sterk shines in radio debate

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